


Sun In My Eyes

by notinacroptop



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Co-workers, F/F, Kieu My POV, Space metaphors for some reason, exes to enemies to lovers but only in Kieu My's head
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 22:02:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30079005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notinacroptop/pseuds/notinacroptop
Summary: ‘The UGC 1810, is a spiral galaxy whose shape has been distorted by a smaller galaxy, UGC 1813, together, they're bent into the shape of a rose,’ Kieu My always wondered about the process of it, how a whole galaxy got bent out of shape.Or Kieu My’s POV of season 5 and parts of season 6 before deviating after the break-up.
Relationships: Fatou Jallow & Kieu My Vu, Fatou Jallow/Kieu My Vu
Comments: 17
Kudos: 62





	Sun In My Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> I loved pretty much everything about S6 of Druck but I admit I was frustrated at some parts like when the break-up was prolonged...so I decided to write a fic prolonging it even more...But seriously though, I just wanted to explore some of the working together theories of the fandom when Druck was airing and also explore Kieu My's POV during S5 and S6. This is a bit dramatic, because Kieu My seems lowkey dramatic haha. 
> 
> Some house keeping, when the time card is at the center it's at the present time while when it's at the right it's in the past. I'm too obsessed with this ship so please talk to me about it here in the comments or at my twitter: @alcaponecrumbs

> **i**

**The Great Conjunction**

> “The apparent meeting of Jupiter and Saturn in the skies – known as the ‘great conjunction’ – marks the birth of a new astrological epoch”
> 
> — **Emily Segal, The Guardian** , December 21, 2020

**DONNERSTAG 2:47**

Nora’s “ _shit, that hurts_ ,” wakes Kieu My. A dim light turns on and Nora looms, casting shadows on Kieu My’s face. She rubs her eyes, the unopened bottle of Castell Silvaner she fell asleep hugging sloshing in her grip, the “Q” that Zoe ripped on the bottle’s label rough on her palms. Kieu My presses her head harder against the carpet as Nora moves about the room, checking the cups they left on the coffee table and picking up the carton of orange juice that Zoe, dared, drank in one go. Next to her, Zoe grunts, and Nora leans over the table, squinting at them.

“She didn’t drink,” Kieu My says, the words scratchy on her throat, “uhm…man, sorry for the mess.”

“It’s fine… well, as long as the carpet is safe,” Nora says, reaching to brush wayward blonde strands off her sister’s face, “Ava brought that.” She really didn’t need to aggravate Ava more, and the memory of almost spilling the cocktail shaker on it makes her head swim.

“Zoe, hey, hey Zozo.” Zoe stirs with a whine, leg thrown over Kieu My’s kicking at the air, elbow knocking against her side. “Hey, Zoe, I just wanted to let you know I’m home already. We—we’ll just be out, on the yard.”

“With Ava? Is she back?”

“No, just Mailin…and Fatou.”

Irritation itches on her fingers when Nora so clearly avoids looking at her. _Is it—is she that obvious_?

Zoe grabs at a table leg, causing one of the plastic cups to teeter above Kieu My. Rising on her knees, her friend teeters as well. “Oh? They aren’t coming up right, Nori?” she says, and then “oh my god, sorry Q,” when the cup inevitably falls on her forehead, Zoe’s sloppy kisses following it. Sleep entirely gone, Kieu My blinks back the prickling in her eyes.

“Not a picture of sobriety right now, huh Nora?” With a laugh, she shoves her friend’s lips away, “And it’s cool, it was barely dating. I won’t start crying at the sight of Fatou.” Nora’s lips purse, and Kieu My is tempted to shrug, but then the girl steps back and she realizes how transparent that would be.

“Okay…that’s good, but we were planning to have a sleep-over...under the stars and all.” Nora says, hurrying only to stutter, patting a hand on her jeans until she disappears into her room. A muffled ‘is it in the laundry?’ passes through the door.

Zoe mouths ‘I won’t start crying at the sight of Fatou’, and Kieu My flips her off before dragging herself up the couch, the leather squeaking against her thighs. “You lying stalker,” Zoe whispers, resting her head on the couch, and pulling at Kieu My’s ankle. “You can try talking to her,” she says, eyes half lidded, “can’t hurt, right?” It really could—it _did_ , so Kieu My just combs her fingers through her friend’s hair, listening to her breathing even out into occasional snores.

Nora spills out of her room a moment later, clutching blankets and pillows in her arms. Kieu My can barely see her behind the stack until she sticks her head out from the side. “I got it, don’t worry,” she says, tottering past, and there’s such a lie to it—such a ‘don’t come with me’ vibe—g _od, everything is so irritating_.

She opens the bottle of silvaner when the flat door closes after Nora, the fizz loud in the quiet room. Outside the Machwitz’ window, the spatter of stars in the sky is as drab as the sad mustard paint of the apartment building across the street. _Wow, that’s bitter of her_. Craning forward, she fishes her handy out of a cup, a late night attempt at a speaker to blast “Material Girl” with. The notification cards flutter after she unlocks it.

Until she was around eight, her mother used to cut her hair; she would seat by the dinner table and wear a bowl on her head—‘your crown, princess,’ her ma would say—and then she’ll cut around it, Kieu My holding aloft a red hand mirror, when the uneven bangs finally settle above her brows, her mother would say ‘bạn dễ thương quá’, placing her hands on her shoulders, and Kieu My didn’t ever particularly like the style but being called ‘adorable’ always settled her: she was ‘ _right_ ’. As she flicks off notifications after notifications of IG likes, that same rightness settles on her chest—then plummets when she sees that Consti posted a story again at three in the morning.

It could be ‘ _Consti, want to go for a jog tomorrow_?’, or ‘ _Ismail found this insanely gory Japanese series, want to binge it with us?_ ’, but she settles with _‘Hey Consti, early breakfast to go at 7?_ ’ She types it out quickly before she can consider it and then takes a sip of the silvaner. It’s too sweet, too peachy, but she still takes another—

“It’s only because I’m drunk,” she tells Zoe after five more sips, taking a snore as encouragement before pulling up Fatou’s IG. “Okay. Last time, Kieu My. Have some self-respect.”

A week ago, Ismail snorted and felt her forehead for a fever when she let slip as they lay in her bed, sleepy through insomnia, that Fatou is kind of a dream girl. It feels so long ago now, and Fatou made her so _fucking_ angry it brought her to tears. So. It should go away—shouldn’t it?—this hook on her lungs, pulling until she feels off-kilter, breathless like she’s at the end of a string of laughter. Fatou posted some half-blurred story with Nora and Mailin, their eyes wide open, fingers wriggling while they say ‘ _ooh’_ and ‘ _sparkle, sparkle_ ’. They look so stupid, but as Fatou grins, taking up the whole screen for a moment, Kieu My’s hooked again, because the warmth in her eyes burn so clearly that she’s iridescent, and Kieu My, as a child, always wondered what it would feel to hold the sun in her hands. 

**MONTAG 12:35**

Fatou Jallow laughs a lot.

It lingers too, before and after, as if her lips are too lazy to let it start and then to make it leave. Before she laughs, there’s this crease between her brows that seems mocking, but the dimples on her cheeks deepen into a curve that’s too happy. It needles at her. The few times they’ve interacted, she can’t tell if Fatou wants her in on the joke or if _she’s_ the joke. _But whatever, s_ he barely talks to the girl, she doubts that’ll change any time soon.

“Nori’s fine, right, Q? She seems like she’s having fun with Ava and Fatou.”

“Too much fun apparently, they did steal the abiball money from us.”

For a moment, Kieu My watches Fatou and Ava cheer Nora on as she does part of the hand choreography while they rests by the bleachers, before she realizes that Zoe has turned quiet. She glances at her friend, now very preoccupied with her nails.

“Hey, Ava’s really nice, and I don’t know Fatou much but she seems…fine,” she says, leaning her shoulder on Zoe’s. It’s a horrible way to say ‘ _I’m sorry we ostracized your sister and you have to hear your own friends talk shit about her_ ,’ but even if she loves Zoe and genuinely liked Nora, she did hurt Constantin, and Consti is family—she has to take his side, like always.

The air condition prickles on the sweat on her nape and the exposed parts of her arms, and she feels lethargic as she sinks closer to Zoe, the heat from their linked arms lulling against the cold sticking to the rest of her. “Just—I wish the thing with Nori and Consti didn’t have to be so damn messy. I don’t even understand why…” Zoe’s words weigh on her eyelids, and soon it sounds like it’s bubbling up underwater, the algebraic equations she studied all night for a quiz that didn’t happen replacing it, and her aunt Lam’s voice joining in—‘ _Rachel was always a bit good at it, but I didn’t expect…first in the Maths Olympiad, but of course, your Kieu My is doing so well too…_ ’—she blinks. Fatou’s looking at her now. Kieu My stares back, that slice of sleep still ahold of her. It takes seconds before Fatou averts her gaze, but then it’s sudden: the jerk of her chin and the widening of her eyes. In her skin, this thrill isn’t really new, her realization was never a supernova _bang_ , but more of settling pops, like those packaging bubble wraps—a _pop_ , when her breath just snags at Zendaya in neon eye make-up in Euphoria, a _pop_ when her glances kept landing on two girls making-out in Ismail’s birthday party, a _pop_ when she found herself wondering what it would feel like to run her fingers along the dip of a woman’s hips … a _pop_ when, surprisingly, Fatou Jallow stares at her a tad too taken.

That instant pops too. Fatou touches fingers to her forehead, hiding her face, and she’s cheering again for Nora when she lowers her hand. Zoe says “I feel like Nora expects too much and too little of me, and now Kiki…,” but Kieu My stares for a bit more, _perhaps she was imagining it or adding meaning to it, maybe her ego is putting things that aren’t there_ , then turns to Zoe, twisting so that the three girls on the bleachers isn’t in her view anymore.

She hears Fatou say ‘ _oh Nora, you’re so sexy when you dance, I’m in love,”_ in a faux deep tone, followed by laughter and Nora complains that a ‘he’ doesn’t sound like that. At her sister’s voice, Zoe stops talking, shaking her head even when she smiles.

“She’ll be okay, Zoe. Consti’s just being a drama queen,” Kieu My says, resting her chin on her friend’s shoulder, “…I’ll try to talk to Ismail and Constantin, yeah?”

It’s already the third break of today’s dance practice, but the ten minutes of it Kieu My still allows to twenty. She can be nice to Nora only in this nothing way _,_ because she doesn’t laugh as much as Fatou Jallow and she isn’t as kind.

**DONNERSTAG 4:35**

Outside, the streetlights have gone blurry, but the sky is lighter now, lined by a yellow that’s swallowed up by towers in the distance. The blue of it reflects off the windows of nearby houses and seeps in the air. Kieu My shivers. The early morning mood makes her miss her bed, and when the café down the street opens its metal grille, the screech and the glare of its neon signage jar her enough that she misses a step. She needs a nap that isn’t in the Machwitz’ rug if even the whiff of caffeine isn’t inviting now. It’s rare that she takes morning walks home alone, usually she was with friends after a party, hang-over and hanging over each other—once, she was with her older sister Ngoc, the two of them trying out cheap beers and cup noodles from other corner shops just for the shit of it. But sometimes when she’s alone, she thinks this might be how floating in space would feel, the forefront silence and the brewing sounds. It’s a bit lonely.

A car passing by catches her attention, and then she sees Fatou. She’s small on the opposite side of the street, bundled up in her oversized jacket, the gold of her hair stark against the light coming from a twenty-four hour drug store. Fatou bops her head to a music Kieu My can’t hear, and like they’re strung together, the out-of-place adorableness of it almost pulls Fatou’s name out of her mouth. It could be easy. The string could be twine this time so when they’ve had their fun it would be a quick snap. A distraction, she could be that—good enough, pretty enough, until that special girl Fatou could spend six hours sitting in a cemetery with. But then she’s matching Fatou’s steps anyway. _It’s not possible now is it?_ Because Kieu My’s sleepy and tired but she’s still held in this slower pace. With Fatou, the fall is easy but the snap truly isn’t.

Fatou glances at her, _and pathetic and totally uncool_ , Kieu My stays like that, walking in step seven meters away, trying to stop from looking too much.

**SAMSTAG 15:15**

“Did you know Anne Hathaway was like the ninth choice for that Devil Wears Prada movie?”

Kieu My grimaces as the mint-choco ice cream drips from the cone to her fingers, the stickiness of it exacerbating the unusually hot afternoon. “Who was the first choice?” she asks Ismail, who has eaten through most of their cone, and is now leaning closer by the window of an animal clinic to look at a corgi inside.

“Rachel McAdams, apparently. What should I name him? Prada?”

She comes to the window too, the corgi, wagging his tale at them before trotting back to a blonde woman sitting by the far corner. “Too bad, Inci. Nametag said Bernd.”

Ismail pops the last stub of the cone into their mouth, says “wow, that’s a boringly predictable name,” and then pulls Kieu My along by her wrist before she could bite into her own ice cream. This part of Hermannstraße isn’t as bustling, except for the four people lined up and chatting by the ATM machine at Berliner Volsbank and the laughing group of women coming out of Rossman, there are only a handful of pedestrians passing by them. Even the traffic is calmer, and there were more cars and bikes parked by the curb than on the street.

“You named a fish ‘Mrs. Puff’, Ismail, not exactly unique.”

“—and you followed a stray cat around calling it ‘Ms. Whisky’, so you shouldn’t be judging anyone.” 

“Man, I was drunk.”

Ismail chuckles and ducks for her ice cream, and Kieu My swears at them, extending her hand away. They tussle all the way until _Aquarius_ , Ismail rolling their eyes at her before peering at one of the aquariums flush against the window of the aquatic pet shop. “Help me find, Mrs. Puff, Q.” The deep purple fluorescent inside _Aquarius_ colors Ismail’s white woolen sweater, and Kieu My sighs, rustling their hair—smoother and parted cleaner than it ever was. Their usual pearl earrings were missing, but present for most of the walk is cigarette dangling from their fingers. Lighting one again, they prop one hand on the glass to scan the fishes for the blue angelfish that was going to be ‘Mrs. Puff’ today.

Earlier, they called her out and only said “the grandparents” in the message, so she lets Ismail have the quiet they haven’t had all morning, walking over to look at posters of Koi food advertisements taped near the door instead of crowding in front of that one aquarium. Between the posters, the shop counter is visible but… Fatou Jallow isn’t behind it. _It must not be her shift_. Kieu My’s seen her in their last few ice cream walks but didn’t place her at first and only thought she looked familiar, until she started hanging out with Nora. Instead of Fatou, who always seem to be straining against the counter to coo or feed the fishes, there’s another girl, flipping through a book.

Kieu My bites on her cone, and then pulls out her phone to check Instagram.

She’s trying to get the right angle to take a picture of Ismail when the shop door opens with the clang of a bell, causing a jerk of her hand and a blurry picture.

“It’s scary, come on. Cold and dark and…nothing. You’re weird, Fatou.”

“Is it weird, or is it _genius_?” Fatou’s voice comes from inside the shop. It reminds her of that time she’s seen a street artist performing with wine glasses in the subway, that same fragile ring of fingertips on the rim of the glass making the dyed water quiver, that same expectation of something breaking when she says the last word in lilting English, as if the glass has been pressed on too hard. “But seriously, Japan has these shrimps called ‘sea-fireflies’ that glow blue in the dark, and moon jellyfishes, for real, look like glowing flowers. Imagine dancing in the middle of that, fishes must have cool raves.” She laughs when the girl on the counter calls her a weirdo again, and then they’re saying goodbyes to each other. When Fatou walks out of the cover of the door, still looking back to tease, Kieu My wonders if she should say hi. _They were schoolmates after all_. _Seems rude not to_.

But Fatou doesn’t turn to her, and the sudden thud of her skateboard when she drops it is too distracting that before Kieu My can say anything the girl’s pushed on, the wheels of her board casting moving colors on the pavement.

Later, as she’s sitting by the pool at a party thrown by Finn’s friend Lasse, Finn and Zoe making out next to her, she closes her eyes and slips into the water. The cold laps against her skin until she’s submerged and when she opens her eyes, the LED strips strung around the trees throw trembling spots of light on the surface of the water, and she thinks of Fatou’s ‘fish raves’—of dancing in the middle of living lights.

_Maybe it is genius._

**DONNERSTAG 16:05**

It’s still there.

Left-over smudged lines, just there, under the stenciled red ‘SPÄTI’ on their corner shop’s window, extending until the taped John Player Special posters. Her sister is smoking next to it, and Kieu My watches the smoke curl, half expecting it to stick to the words and make it legible again, like pencil on indentations: ‘Drei Chinesen mit Corona.’ _Can’t get more childish than a children’s song_. _Right after they renovated too, god_. She spent a whole hour yesterday, on her tiptoes under it, soap suds down her arms, scrubbing off the paint so furiously that her nails left scratches on the glass, but it’s still _fucking_ there.

“Hide the devil horns, Kieu My. We have a new one, don’t scare her away with your face this time.”

“I didn’t scare the last one away.”

“Oh right—it was the painful, painful lash of your rejection on his heart.”

Kieu My stares at her pointedly before walking past. Ngoc has always been so dramatic.

Old Mr. Becker and Mr. Schafer from down the block are already playing cards on one of the wooden tables outside their shop, two bags of chips open at the side. They barely acknowledge her greeting as she grabs the door. When she steps in, there is no one inside, but the sound of bottles clinking comes from the backroom. Tying her hair up in a ponytail, she makes her way over. Peeking in, she can see a hand taking beer bottles from the top of a stack of four Erdinger cases. Murmured counting then follows.

“Uh…hi, I’m Kieu My. Ngoc’s sister—I’m taking the shift with you.”

The murmuring stops and Fatou haltingly stands up from behind the stack, her hand on the case causing the bottles to clink again. 

“Hi—Hi, Kieu My,” Fatou’s voice shakes, and like a response to it, Kieu My’s chest tightens, “Look, I really didn’t know. You said to stay away, I’m sorry, but I really didn’t know.” 

_So you really are just going to stay away_.

Even from the start, they’re always on the verge of over. Kieu My can feel that piercing again when Fatou looks down to steady the case. It makes her restless, makes her want to cling before it’s really over. Once again impulsively run after Fatou without thinking about it—but she’s run out of bravery. Maybe she’s asking for a lot when she isn’t worth that much in Fatou’s eyes. It’s simple economics, after all.

“Can we—Kieu My—can we—“

“Sis, move,” Ngoc says, squeezing past her in the narrow door frame, “Fatou, you’ve got the bottles? Let me help you before I go.”

Fatou blinks at her, opening her mouth only to close it in a sigh that plumps her lower lip, and the rush of taking it between hers that first time sinks in Kieu My’s stomach again— _god, she’s never been this attracted to a person before_. _Not the fucking time_.

“Did you scare Fatou already, Kieu My? That fast?” Ngoc stoops down to collect half of the bottles laid down, and that gets Fatou moving, leaning down to take the rest.

“Stop being annoying, Ngoc,” Kieu My says, averting her eyes when Fatou looks up again. Kieu My turns on her heels then, and in her wake, her sister’s left to assure her niceness, ‘ _just grumpy because she’s hungry_.’

For the rest of the shift, even when she’s angled away, it is as if the floor revolves under her anyway and she still sees so much of Fatou, the song she hums from behind the magazine displays, the flick of her hair and the smell of her shampoo, the glint of her rings. Kieu My’s aware of all of it even as she greets customers and counts changes—isn’t this almost torture? Why did she ever do this to herself?

Their neighbor, Mr. Huber, appears in front of the cash register and Kieu My flinches, lowering the sandwich she’s been trying to concentrate on instead of—someone. “I’m sorry, uh, let me scan that,” she says grabbing the beer can and Oreo packet he sets on the counter. He just waves her apology away and asks after her parents before joining Mr. Becker and Schafer outside.

“Wow, your sister said they’ve been out there drinking since this morning,”

Fatou’s suddenly next to her, resting the soft of her chin on top of the mop handle in her grip. Earlier, she’s avoided the general vicinity of the counter, and now, finally, she’s stepped into Kieu My’s ‘space’. Kieu My opens the cash register and busies herself with counting the bills. “They’re here every Thursday, with their wives, sometimes. Done that even before I started helping out here, I think,” she says it as monotone as possible, like Fatou is a tourist asking for directions.

“Cool, though, right? They’ve been laughing so much.” Fatou says, and even when she’s not looking at her, Kieu My can hear the smile in her voice, “It’s kind of amazing that some people really spend most of their lives laughing together, sitting together in one special place.”

Her Pa would have loved that, hearing anyone call the store a ‘special place’, but everyone always said she was more like her mother, so she just says, “or they’re just…you know… drunk.”

Fatou laughs then, swiveling her body around the mop and tipping it closer to Kieu My, her brows rising she says, “Is that boring for you? Miss I-want-to-live-in-Mars? But maybe you know, when you’ve made all your groundbreaking discoveries and we all get to go to other planets, there’d be cyber späti’s in Mars too, and you can sit around all day, drinking cheap vodka with the gang gangs. That’ll be pretty fun, right?”

‘I like you,’ is her first thought when Fatou looks at her expectantly, those dimples on her cheeks so inviting, because Kieu My understands astronomy as something awe-inspiring in its eeriness, burning giants in revolution, but Fatou shrinks it to the familiar, sweeter, gentler. Somehow, she does that to a lot of things. But—Fatou’s terrifying too, she can peek right through her so easily, and decide she isn’t enough for the real thing. So, she busies herself with the bills again, says, “the AC’s been leaking a bit, can you get that?,” and ignores the eyes clearly on her. 

“Okay, Kieu My.”


End file.
